Talk:Dragunov SVU

Basic article clean up
No offense is intended to the original author, but it currently contains clumsy wording and several inaccuracies. When I get some more time I may attempt to repair it, but for now this is what I see:

1. The history is not particularly specific or even accurate, the third link gives a much more detailed account.

2. 150 decibels of noise reduction is not even possible; the muzzle report is maybe 150 decibels total. "Good" suppressors can achieve as high as 35-40 decibel reduction (MP-5SD); perhaps it was a typo and 15 db was intended?

3. "...the center of gravity was increased by the addition of a forward extended bipod..." Doesn't make any sense. The weight is increased to be sure; perhaps, "The weapon's balance was improved by the addition of a bipod forward of the grip" was the intended meaning. Bullpups are notorious for having odd or "poor" balance".

4. 20 round magazines appear to have been developed, but have never been seen in service; the third link once again comes in handy claiming that they were never adopted. 30 round is highly unlikely, even as an experiment: 30 rounds of 7.62x54R is a huge mag (most high power .30 rifles only have 20) and would be very heavy, making the balance even worse.

5. "Better optics were incorporated..." and then the next paragraph says PSO-1 which is the standard scope of the SVD and has been for many decades. In addition, there is a wiki for the PSO-1 so discussing details about it here is unnecessary.

6. The rates of fire given are also misleading. The select fire version is fully automatic; its cyclic rate of fire is probably more like 500-600 rpm. Where does this 30 and 5 come from? Is this aimed shots per minute? If so, what does "automatic mode" have to do with it?

I'm not an expert on this weapon, but that's what I can read from the links, plus general knowledge of firearms. If someone with first hand knowledge can shed some insight, please do so. A rewrite to make it more accurate based on my knowledge would likely gut it and not leave much behind-- I can tell what's wrong, but I don't have anything to put in its place. Nwilde (talk) 04:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)